At Death's Window (15 page)

A
chalk A-board in the marble entrance hall at St James’ announced that the press conference would be at two o’clock in the Gayton Suite: third floor. The thought of it seemed to suck the life out of Valentine’s limbs as he came through the swing doors, so that he came to a halt, threw his head back, and looked up at the white dome above. A mural depicted Justice balancing her scales. Shaw would be upstairs now, checking his notes, talking someone from the media department through the press release.

Valentine couldn’t face it. He’d be on time, but no earlier. Up on his feet since the early hours, he deserved a decent cup of tea. The fire exit door bounced open into the rear yard. An exterior entrance led down into the basement. Unlike many police headquarters – most notably New Scotland Yard – St James’ was actually a police station, not just an administrative HQ. Back in the late eighties he and Jack Shaw had gone down to Old Scotland Yard on a case and entered through its police station – known officially as Canon Row. St James’ version had no separate name, but it was a small world of its own, with a line of cells, front counter, and a duty officer – usually a young PC.

Valentine felt at ease because the place always smelt like a coppers’ lair: industrial piping, tiled floors, and a hint of filing cabinets, disinfectant and nicotine. Despite being deep-cleaned since the smoking ban, the woodwork still breathed out the aroma of thousands of Silk Cut, Marlboro and, reaching back, Woodbine and Embassy. One of the cells was set aside as a makeshift canteen with a kettle and tea and coffee-making kit. Valentine, who’d used this informal café many times, made a mug of mahogany brown brew and idly read the day book on the counter: the record of all incidents recorded in the last twenty-four-hour period. There was a uniformed constable on the desk, a kid with glasses about five foot nine, who seemed to know Valentine because he kept smiling at him.

‘It’s been quiet,’ the constable said. ‘Two in the cells – both drunk. I’m checking every ten minutes – less.’

Valentine nodded in sympathy. They’d all like to get through their careers without a death in police cells. It didn’t matter what the facts were, the slight stain of the incident was indelible. In Valentine’s first year in the job he’d been assigned to cell duties for three months. Once, unable to trust a distraught drunk who’d threatened to cut his wrists, he’d sat in the cell with him all night, both of them chain-smoking.

Valentine enjoyed documents like the day book. For him they represented the bread and butter of policing. Raw, street-level, unprocessed data. When he was a young DI he’d made a point of coming down and reading it if he had a spare ten minutes. It was like picking up the shipping forecast on the car radio; the litany of petty crime seemed to offer a warm, encircling comfort, often in stark contrast to whatever case had landed on his desk in CID.

The phrase ‘air pellets’ caught his eye, so he read the whole entry again:

Arnold John Smith-Waterson. Arrested 8.10 a.m. on suspicion of theft outside the Convenience Store, London Road. Cell Six. Contents of overcoat pockets: catering-sized packet of Tunnock Bars, a half bottle of Tesco’s whisky, eight Aztec bars, ten Aeros and five packets of Revels. Wallet: £8.00 cash. Credit card. Box of air pellets – unopened. Released 12.45 p.m.

‘Smith-Waterson,’ said Valentine, turning the book round so the youngster could see the entry. ‘You book him in?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, then caught the hardening in Valentine’s eyes. ‘Sir. He’s reporting back tonight. Sergeant Pilling’s got the case notes. Goes by the name of Gutter on the street. Tramp. Shop owner rang us and said he was hoovering up sweets. It won’t be the first time. Lives down on the Outfall. Well, he sleeps down there. Spends most days hanging round the churchyards with a book. Big reader, is Gutter.’

Churchyards.

Valentine nodded and left. The press conference was due to start precisely on the hour, which left him fifteen minutes. His slightly arthritic military step got him down to the riverside in under five, although his heartbeat was perceptible in his chest.

The riverside was concrete, with benches, and observation platforms which offered a view north, along the Cut to the sea. A set of steel steps led down towards the sticky mud of the estuary, but after three corkscrew turns they reached a platform, which formed the lip of a wide sewer tunnel, over which a sluggish trickle of water fell into the estuary. This was all that was left of the Millfleet River, built over by the Victorians.

The spot was known as the Outfall. A man-made cave went back fifty feet, before narrowing to a large metal pipe, blocked with a semi-circular iron grid. On the smooth dry concrete ‘riverbank’ stood a little shanty town of cardboard boxes and old mattresses. One tramp stood in the water, barefoot, smoking. A dog on a rope showed Valentine a wet throat and a lolling tongue.

He put his warrant card in the face of a teenager in a puffa jacket, torn to reveal the multicoloured insulation within.

‘I’m looking for Gutter.’

The kid pointed further along the bank to a neat set of cardboard boxes. Arnold John Smith-Waterson was sitting on an old office chair reading a book. He was about seventy, with a pair of rimless glasses with one cracked lens. He wore expensive clothes, worn to the edge of oblivion: a tweed jacket, cords, brown leather shoes, a wool shirt, a scarf, and finally leather gloves – which, oddly, looked new. A price label for the right one flapped at his wrist.

He looked at Valentine out of the corners of his eyes.

Valentine showed him his warrant card and asked him about the air pellets and why he had them in his pockets.

Gutter set the book aside like a relic, carefully folding a corner of a blanket over the cover.

‘Did you steal the gloves too?’ asked Valentine.

‘Spring tide this evening,’ said Gutter, finally. ‘They won’t believe me. We’ll have to move up top. Absolutely, yes.’ He shook his head as if someone, unheard, was disagreeing. ‘It’s the word that misleads them:
spring.
They think autumn, winter, summer. Wrong, of course. You’ll know …’ Fleeting eye contact, and Valentine saw the intelligence, the fact that there was another person behind the glassy, reflective surfaces. ‘It’s because it
springs
…’ Gutter made his gloved hands into two animal claws. ‘Sixteen feet nine by eleven thirty-two p.m. Over your head, right now, where you’re standing.’

Valentine squatted down, and got close. ‘Show me where the gun is or we’re going back to St James’ now.’

‘I don’t need to steal. I’ve got a credit card and there’s £6,435 and fifty-six pence in the account as of this morning.’

Valentine lit a cigarette. The press conference started in eight minutes but he wasn’t going to move a muscle. Peter Shaw was pretty good at a lot of things, but in front of a room full of media newshounds he was even better. The last thing he needed was a tatty DS to hand round the press release.

Valentine sent him a text.
Interview ongoing. I’ll be late.

‘So it’s not just in spring, you see,’ continued Gutter. ‘That’s the mistake they make. But you wouldn’t make that mistake, I know that.’ He tried a smile, revealing good teeth, bad gums.

‘What have you got against angels?’

Gutter’s mouth lolled open in shock at the question.

‘Show me the gun and we’ll talk. No promises. But if you don’t show me the gun we’re going back to St James’ and you’ll be staying. Indoors. Inside. It’s that simple.’

In Valentine’s experience the vast majority of so-called ‘tramps’ were simply claustrophobics, unable to deal with the strictures and regulations imposed on those who had to live under a roof.

Gutter’s cardboard cot, which had once held a ‘complete carry-cot system’ according to the label, looked cosy. He closed the flaps as if locking his own front door, and his neighbours watched balefully as Valentine led him away, up the steel steps to the quayside above.

Gutter led the way south along the riverbank. In less than a hundred yards they came to a mud bank which they climbed. Before them lay a grassy inlet, behind the Boal Quay, which less than a decade ago was a meander in the River Nar. One high tide had cut the ‘neck’ of the loop in the river and left it high and dry, a few of the old forgotten boats stranded in the channel forever. One or two were just piles of old wood now, lying in the grassy dry channel. Others, appropriated by squatters, sported makeshift washing lines.

Gutter’s choice had no name but BEWARE THE DOG had been spray-canned down one side in letters a foot tall. An old wooden barge, it had a derelict wheelhouse and a broken mast. Gutter didn’t need to step aboard, but instead simply slipped a hand in through the shattered clinker hull where a porthole had once been. After a brief tussle with some boards the gun came out wrapped in an oilcloth. The haft held an engraved plate:
Arnold Smith-Waterson
.

Valentine took the weapon and noted that Gutter did everything with his right hand, the left held awkwardly to his chest.

‘What’s wrong with your hand?’

Valentine almost walked away then, because he could see the fear in the old man’s eyes. Trapped, cornered, like an animal with no available means of escape. Valentine hadn’t come into the police force to make vulnerable people feel scared. He bit back the sudden urge to apologize. He’d been a bully, and it wasn’t an attractive self-image. He needed to rethink this relationship, and he’d start by calling the other man by his proper name.

‘Arnold. Show me your hand. Then I can help.’

Gutter didn’t want to tell him what was wrong with his hand, but now it was inevitable that he would, and that this would change his life forever. He began to shake, quite visibly, his shoulders vibrating.

‘Show me,’ said Valentine, in as kindly a voice as he had in what was admittedly a narrow repertoire.

It took a series of small tugs to dislodge the glove from the fingers.

When it was completely off he let it fall to the ground.

Three of the fingers were pale and white, the fourth, next to the thumb, was black – exactly the same spectrum of black you can observe in an over-ripe banana, from a deep yellow to a purple.

And there was a sweet smell. Valentine took a step back despite himself.

‘Necrosis,’ said Smith-Waterson. ‘The flesh is dead,’ he added, as if the hand belonged to someone else.

Valentine had seen the pictures Fiona Campbell had put up in CID. Victims of the adulterated drugs, with dead, blackened limbs.

Gutter’s other hand, still gloved, fluttered in front of his lips. ‘I can’t tell anyone his name. The man who did this. The fallen angel.’ He held the disfigured hand up in front of his face. ‘But I wanted retribution.’ His eyes met Valentine’s and hardened. ‘I need retribution. I have no peace without it. So I take it where I can. I kill angels.’

J
ack Shaw, who had always looked down on what he called the ‘gin and tiller’ set, used to tell his son that you should never trust the owner of a boat that has patio doors. John Jack Stepney’s
Highlife
was a flagship of what the locals disparagingly called the white ships – fibreglass gin palaces with reflective glass saloons, radar and sonar on a scale which would embarrass NASA, and – without exception – patio doors.

The little resort of Wells-next-the-Sea was buzzing with a late summer crowd, despite the fact a violent thunderstorm had blown through the town that afternoon, leaving the pavements steaming in the sunshine. A long line of trippers trekked the mile along the sea wall back to town from the beaches. Fried fat, batter and the sweet smell of candyfloss filled the air.

Shaw stood on the quay examining
Highlife
, relieved to be back outdoors after an exhausting press conference which had included a live BBC TV interview for
Look East
. The media had been given what facts they had on the murder of Shrimp Davies. Yes, the murder was possibly connected to the death on Mitchell’s Bank. Yes, they were investigating reports the deaths might be linked to the lucrative samphire trade on the coast. And yes, they had a lead: the
Limpet
.

Its owner had been traced quickly through the harbour master’s office at Cley. His principal residence was in Normandy. An airline pilot, he had been contacted through a third party at EasyJet. An initial telephone call had established that he was not in the country on the night of seventeenth October. The boat should have been moored in the harbour at Blakeney. It had last gone to sea in late August. A district PC at Blakeney confirmed that the boat was not in the harbour. Fishermen, the RNLI, Coastwatch and HMRC had all been put on alert to try and find the
Limpet.
Meanwhile, the owner had sent them a digital image of the boat which they were releasing immediately to the media.

That was what Shaw had told the press. But meanwhile, behind the scenes, they were working flat out to track down the vehicle spotted by Geoff Wighton at Tines Manor
.
DC Lau was at the county council offices trying to locate the white van, one of nearly forty in a pool used by council officers. The incomplete registration number was causing some problems, as was the fact that the register of drivers was not up to date, and relied on a slipshod system for booking vans in and out of the pound. It looked likely that they would have to wait until all the vans had been returned that evening, or at least booked out overnight by telephone call or email.

Which left them with their prime suspect, John Jack Stepney. Shaw had no doubts he’d have a decent alibi for the murder of Shrimp Davies. Stepney had gone up in the world since the days when he’d had to dole out violence in person on the street. But were the two murders really connected to the samphire trade? Or rather, were they
solely
connected to the samphire trade? Could Stepney be complicit in the burglaries too? Exactly how far-flung was his north Norfolk criminal network? Whatever the truth, Shaw needed to confront Stepney. If they could unsettle, intimidate, he might make a mistake. Shaw had ordered a twenty-four-hour surveillance unit to shadow him from dusk that evening.

In keeping with most of the white ships,
Highlife
had a quayside bell. Valentine gave it a vicious ring. He hated bells – particularly those rung to indicate last orders. A long day had left him tired and dispirited. He’d left Arnold ‘Gutter’ Smith-Waterson with the custody sergeant at St James’. Fiona Campbell was organizing a transfer to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. A formal interview would follow after he’d been treated for the necrosis in his fingers. Leaving Gutter in a cell at St James’ had felt like a betrayal.

The sharp note of the bell brought Stepney’s daughter on deck.

‘He’s in the Palace,’ she said, indicating one of the three amusement arcades on the little front. She was in skimpy shorts again, and a floppy T-shirt, having apparently enjoyed a very brief sunshine holiday. There was no sign of the child who’d been bundled off in a taxi from the house in Balamory. In one hand she held a large tumbler of white wine; the glass blushed with condensation.

‘Rain, did it, in the Canaries?’ asked Valentine. ‘Tenerife, you said,’ he added, noting her bemused look.

‘We’ve got a flat. I just go to check the water, pay the bills. It’s work really.’

Shaw retrieved her name from his memory banks: ‘Emilia,’ he said. ‘Why’s your dad in the Palace?’

‘Because he owns it, and it’s been struck by lightning.’ She seemed to think this provided the
coup de grâce
to their conversation, so she walked off down the deck, the wine glass held at an angle so far from the vertical that she lost a little with each step.

The Palace appeared to be closed, unlike the other two arcades, which emitted canned music and the strange mechanical thuds and klaxons associated with fruit machines. The façade of the amusement arcade was made up of several folding glass doors, like a 1930s cinema foyer. Inside they could see workmen entangled in wiring which hung down in a series of bundles from the ceiling, where several asbestos tiles had been removed to allow access to the service ducts.

Stepney was in the back office, through a fire door, off an alley which hugged the back wall of the building. They had to wait while he finished an ill-tempered conversation with one of the workmen who had just announced, with a note of barely disguised satisfaction, that the Palace would be unable to reopen for at least two days.

‘Poor insulation,’ said the electrician. ‘So one bolt of lightning and bang! The lot’s blown.’

Shaw wandered out into the main arcade while Stepney tried to explain that such a timetable was not acceptable. Two questions bothered Shaw: where had Stepney got the cash to buy the business, and why didn’t the police know he was the owner? All gambling venues were licensed and regulated by the Gambling Commission, and notified to the police authority. If Stepney’s name had come up the West Norfolk police would have at least attempted to block the application, but Stepney’s police records mentioned nothing. It was, however, apparent that his involvement with the Palace was hardly clandestine. So what was going on?

Out in the main arcade there was a lingering aroma of shorted wires. Stepney appeared from his office, grinning. ‘Thought you’d be down at the fishmonger’s looking at the prize catch. Apparently he’s six pounds fifty a pound – cheaper than the salmon. Mind you – cheap’s relative. They know how to charge in Burnham Market.’

Shaw had hoped to keep the precise details of the scene of crime confidential, but at least half-a-dozen witnesses had seen the body before the police arrived, and all had shared the story with family and friends. This particular news genie was well and truly out of its bottle, so Stepney’s comment betrayed no insider knowledge. A double bluff, perhaps?

Grilling Stepney over Shrimp Davies’ death was a waste of time. The problem with the killing was that it was undeniably in Stepney’s interests that everyone
thought
Davies had been murdered in order to establish the East Ender’s grip on the samphire trade, and much else. So why do him any favours?

Quietly, methodically, they were working to build up Stepney’s background file. Shaw had put a call into the Met, to C Division at Mile End, to request his full file to be sent up to Lynn. Twine would organize a formal statement tomorrow at St James’ so that Stepney’s movements over the last twenty-four hours could be double-checked. Overnight the team would apply for warrants for both
Highflyer
and Stepney’s house – next door to the daughter’s in Balamory. Might Stepney be the fence for the goods stolen from second homes? He’d certainly had the contacts. And he had the vans.

‘Your daughter’s holiday was short-lived,’ said Shaw.

‘She dropped off Michael – my grandson. There’s family out on the island – brothers, an uncle. It’s not a white slave trade or anything.’

‘She – that’s Emilia – seemed to think you owned this place.’

Shaw saw it then – like a reptile’s third eyelid suddenly glimpsed, the anger flickering. ‘Stupid cow. I am merely an employee. If you want the owner you’ll have to talk to the lawyers. I’ve got a number somewhere.’

‘That would help,’ said Shaw. ‘Do they know about your criminal record, the owners? Violence, of course. And burglary. Tell me about the break-ins. Residential, business, I forget the details.’

Stepney stiffened the muscles in his shoulders and took a step towards Shaw, expecting the DI to flinch back, but he held his position precisely, so that they ended up a few inches apart, face-to-face.

‘You’ve got no right bringing that up. Those convictions are spent. This is harassment.’

‘Ever tempted to get back in the business? Lift the odd latch. Nick some old dear’s purse off the mantelpiece. Or something a bit up-market. Artwork, jewels, white goods, three-D TVs?’

Stepney worked something round in his mouth and for a moment Valentine thought he was going to spit in Shaw’s face.

Then he smiled. ‘Just get on with it. I haven’t got all day. I’m a very busy man.’ He walked to one of the machines and put a ten-pence piece in the slot. ‘People are funny,’ he said. ‘These things are all buttons and circuits now – but they still like to pull the arm. Know what they call it?’

‘Light up my day,’ said Shaw.

‘A legacy lever,’ he said, spinning the oranges, pears and apples.

‘My DS has got a few questions, Mr Stepney,’ said Shaw. ‘Nothing you won’t be expecting.’

Valentine asked him for details of his whereabouts in the last twenty-four hours, asking him – point blank – if he was involved in the murder of Shrimp Davies. The denial had all the generous sincerity they’d come to expect. The alibi was impressive. Not only had Stepney been on the boat, he’d been on the boat during a five-hour party. Guests had included two local councillors, a town magistrate and three members of the WI.

‘Just trying to build bridges with the local community,’ said Stepney.

To Shaw the alibi suggested that while Stepney had not taken part in the killing he had known its date and time. This was the principal advantage of organized crime, that different parts of the organization could be mobilized to carry out dirty work on someone else’s patch, largely removing the possibility that motive could be used to track back to the killer.

Shaw wandered among the slot machines. Stepney was clearly unhappy at having police on the premises so they might as well take their time. Shaw recalled a scene from the film of
The Grapes of Wrath
– which he was pretty sure was in Steinbeck’s original text. The family, migrant workers fleeing the 1930s dustbowl of Oklahoma, pull up for petrol at a lonely desert garage. While the truck’s taking on fuel they crowd round a table in the little café for coffee. A driver comes in and pulls the lever on a slot machine. As he does so the café owner, behind the counter, surreptitiously adds a chalk mark to a tally. He waits for one of the poor ‘Okies’ to try their luck with their last dime. Then he adds another chalk mark and walks casually round to make the next play. The machines are fixed to pay out on a set number of lever pulls. He collects the jackpot. Shaw wondered how modern slot machines were regulated.

Valentine, finished with his standard inquiries, had one last question for Stepney.

‘What’s the RTP on that bandit?’ he asked, pointing at one of the one-pound slot machines.

Shaw had forgotten that Valentine had spent six months on a gambling task force back in the 1980s. They’d shaken down the arcades in Lynn and Hunstanton, and Cromer and Sheringham. Valentine had enjoyed it because he loved a bet, found it deeply satisfying to evaluate risk, and then take a chance. Oddly, he had never felt a twinge of addiction.

Stepney gave Valentine the full 100-watt glare. That was his Achilles heel, thought Shaw, and the one thing he really feared, that he’d be made a fool of, the veneer of education exposed for what it was – bluster, powered by the projection of a palpable sense of physical threat. It was clear he didn’t know what RTP was – and more to the point, neither did Shaw.

‘Return To Player,’ said Valentine. ‘You put a hundred pounds in over a session, or a hundred dollars for that matter, and the RTP tells you how much – on average – you get back. In Nevada it’s seventy-five pounds, or seventy-five dollars – in New Jersey it’s eighty-three dollars. It’s all regulated because the machines are tested before they leave the factory, each one sealed.’

Valentine produced a one-pound coin: ‘Every one of these machines has an RTP on the front. Right? So the punter knows the risks.’

Stepney was going to speak but Valentine cut in: ‘The RTP’s set and tested by the maker. The regulator licenses operators. If you’re not the licensee, who is?’

‘I’ve got the paperwork. But like you say – it’s all regulated, above board. Fair.’

‘Unless someone tampers with the machines and alters the RTP.’

‘It’s north Norfolk, not Reno. The operator’s a licensed supplier. She deals with the machines. I don’t touch ’em.’

‘
She?
’ asked Shaw.

The smile fell off Stepney’s face. ‘Whatever.’

‘Not always fair though, is it?’ persisted Valentine. ‘Not quite. After all, it’s all very well knowing a machine pays back at ninety per cent, but what if it pays all the money back only in a jackpot – or only in mid-range prizes? That’s what the customer never knows, isn’t it? The strategy, the spread. If you’re a proper gambler that’s what you need to know. And there’s only one way to find out, and that costs a fortune.’

Valentine slipped the coin into the nearest machine and spun the seven reels. A HOLD, a HOLD, then three NUDGES, and he’d won. The machine chugged out pound coins.

Stepney went and got the number for the lawyers. It was a printed card marked Norfolk Entertainments, Inc.

Shaw took the card. ‘We’ll be back, Mr Stepney. One of my team will be calling later today to arrange for a formal statement. Not planning any trips to Tenerife yourself, I hope?’